No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
What he didn't mention, but what I know, is that each one of us is a different country on that continent, and speak a different language. We may think we're saying the same thing, and using words that mean the same thing, but amount of misunderstanding there is between people much proves to me that we don't. Everything we say--our language and expectations--is informed by our personal and cultural history, our families, our environment, and the particular geography of our homes.
I think the biggest misunderstandings come out of the idea that just because you grew up with someone that you know that person. Fact is, you don't, especially if you've parted from that person for a few years.
One thing I told the Alien Child when he returned from college is this: I don't know you now. You are a different person. I didn't say it in a mean way, to try to guilt him into anything, or in a way calculated to alienate him from me, because God knows I'd shrivel up inside if my son thought I ceased to love or want to understand him. But the fact is, I knew him very well up to the point of his senior year of high school just after his father and I dropped him off at college. After that, he gathered experiences and knowledge of the world and of himself that had nothing to do with me, and of which I have no knowledge, nor can I even guess. He grew up, became an adult, no longer my little boy, no longer even my teenaged boy. He has experiences and knowledge that shaped him into what he is now, and because I don't know what he knows, or experienced what he experienced, to that extent, I don't know him.
To me, his personality froze at the moment he left home. Over time, it will unfreeze depending on what I discover about him from time to time, forming another, different, adult picture of him. But it will never be as accurate or as close as what I had known at that point of his departure for college, a picture that I cherish and love, perfection and warts and all.
As a result, I warned him that until he is old and to the day I'm on my deathbed, there will be times I will treat him as the teenaged boy I knew, and not the man he has become. I've lived with being his mom for so long, and I do not know the experiences that have made him the man he is. (Unless he tells me, of course, which I don't expect, either. I mean, really, does anyone tell their parents everything they've ever done or said or happened to them from childhood on up? Right. Exactly.) :-)
Anyway, no matter if you've grown up or lived with someone--be they mother, father, brother, sister, child, husband, wife--they will always speak a different language from you, a different experiential language, because there will always be a part of their lives you do not know, do not understand, and have never experienced.
They are, absolutely, a piece of your continent, a part of your main. You will definitely be less if they fall away from you, if they die or become estranged from you. But they are a different country, with a different language. And to assume anything else is to harbor misunderstandings and even alienation, because it means you will not ask them questions with a listening heart, nor will you ever attempt to understand them. Your cup is full of your assumed knowledge of them, good or bad, because you think you already know them, and thus you cannot take in anything new or real about them, no matter how hard they try to tell you in their different, personal language. The real person that is there behind the facade you've created for them....does not exist for you.
It can be as minor, and a bit of a delight, for example, to find that your spouse of many decades loves the same genre of music you do, but you didn't know this. I experienced this just yesterday. :-) The dear hubby called me down last night to listen to some Celtic music by Jamie Laval, a musician who apparently grew up in our area, whom we had both enjoyed in the past. So I sat down and listened, and after a while he said, "I love Celtic music better than most any other kind." I stared at him and said, "How did I not know this about you?" Because I adore Celtic music myself, and I have a big store of it in my computer, and if I had known this, I would have shared a lot more than I had. So here is this thing we have in common, had in common for decades, and I didn't know this even though we'd been married for decades! Well, the DH is a passionate lover of all kinds of music, so not to know that he loves Celtic music especially would be fairly easy to miss.
So a part of me was glad that we have this new thing to explore with and about each other, but another part was a bit sad that I had to discover this at mid-life, instead of when we were younger so that we had more time to enjoy it together.
Often, however, discoveries are not a delight, but a deep hurt. Often, your relative, your lover, your friend has been shouting outside the door of your perceptions of him or her, and you thought it was the wind, shutting the door even tighter and closing the windows more firmly in the thought that you can't let all that cold air in, when, actually, it was the warm breeze of love and friendship calling to you. It didn't sound like love to you, it sounded like a storm. And because it didn't sound just exactly right to you, not in the right timber or tone, and it rattled your very safe doors and windows, you shut it out, so that you could be all nice and cozy safe in your perceptions.
So I've been talking to a relative I care about deeply, and it shocked me a little that this person does not have the same kind of forgiveness as a goal that I have. And then it hit home to me that this person doesn't share my particular spiritual convictions. But then I realized, no, I shouldn't have expected it. I knew he doesn't practice the same spiritual practices, he doesn't devote himself to a set of behaviors that I devote myself to. I knew that. Didn't matter to me in our relationship. However, it nevertheless sat ill on me that he didn't have the same concept of forgiveness that I do. How could a devoted, caring person like that not have the same concept of forgiveness?
The bottom line is, even though we knew each other from childhood, we don't share the same spiritual beliefs. We don't have the same life experiences. We are (slightly) different ages. Our gender is different. As a result, when I say "forgiveness" it means something entirely different to me than what it means to him.
It's not a judgment on him, at all. His feelings are entirely natural and understandable. And to expect anything else would be foolishness on my part. Do I feel disappointed? Of course. There is a part of me that thought he'd be "better" than that. But I have to remember, "better" comes from my own constructs of right and wrong based on my spiritual beliefs, and because he doesn't share those beliefs, he's going to act on his own as he sees fit.
And I have to remember, my disappointment arose from my own assumptions that were false, and in so far I had falsely assumed, I did not truly love. To truly love, you have to know; and to know, you have to ask questions and understand as much as you can, and revise that picture you have in your head to as close to reality as you can. And recommit yourself once again to love.
Otherwise, you will be a stranger in a strange land of your loved one's country, a part of your continent, a part of your main, but never understood because you didn't care enough to learn the language.
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